your butter, your creamyour Italian dreamyour mustard, your cheeseand things I've never tastedtake them away--on me they're wastedyour whiskey, your import beer, your chocolatewhile not a bore, don't fit well my lifeif not found in the storewhere I live--no, not a farmhouse!is that what you presume?

Did you imagine me a Thoreau?

really, it's not about thoughtbut how far I'll make my money goand in this sense, we are alikewhat alienates he and I is the desire to do withoutfelt deep insidehere alternates humiliation and pride--on the outsidewere we conceived to live by only what we needso in this way we came to beforged by force and then by choicecong san sui, kan dao lao!

* a Chinese saying that means: a person's character and temperament is already determined at age 3.

Thought results from sadness --its absence from gladnessthe former as varied as types of leaves creates the myriad types of griefthe latter as pure as a summer breeze need only but pleaseand doesto the depths of the soulbut it plants no seed and does not grow,but withers unlike the mountain brookonce set on its causeby something so small as a pebble or ravinequickly becomes a mountain streamand then a riverand then it churns a course unhinderedby will,halted momentarilyor contained,but still,the waters await a vengeance as sureas their own paceand while wildflowers do surely grace our presencehere and thererepulsed by our thoughtsand weary of our ways well wornthey stay aloof and seem to know better than we knowthat their beauty is not our own

And so was I thus made by my master's hands,wrapped in feather's, buck tail and silk,designed to mirror his master plan--to trick fate, be clever and aloof--to fain modesty, to eludeand delight their eyes,a charm flung here and there.Willed by fate and willing, toobe there only praise.

And along the way I did see to my left and to my rightsuspended in another kind of flightthose made of the real thing,free from grand illusion, loss or gain,genuine (though mortal).

And once!--was it a line left idle?No! 'twas nibbled and taken deep belowdepositing me thus between nook and stone.And my master he did tug,but from afar, but from afar,and there I lay, and there I layuntil the tension ceasedand he tugged no more

And then I did begin to envy from betweenmy nook and stonethose still fluttering high abovewhile waiting for a tremor down belowor some violent flood to send me on once morerolling along to where the crayfish crawlsambivalent to any causeto be once more, willed by fate--willed by fate and nothing more.

Truth is the result of intentionrealized or pursued,twisted,a knarled knot of fate and consequence,the design of desire, demand and desperation,yielding not to good virtue or honesty,instead choosing ambitionand confused judgement,as these are the waysof man.

have you ever plundered the things of some otherchina crackling under foot, broken carelesslyin rage or in spite?dust falling silently from aboveor rising under your careful gait?clothing scattered as if left in flight?sweaters, hand-knit and the resttossed, discarded, forgotten or by another pillaged but worn no more?could you resist this calling to go where the voyeur or the cat burglar could before?through dusty parlor, up, up, up creeping stepsup to the second floor?passing remains and reminders of past lives--a plow no longer pulled, wine jars drya ray of light shining through the ceilingfor the last timethe smell of wine and rotting tangerinesall there for our selectionthis is a planter, that a simple conversation piecethis a funny artifact and those wine bowls full of charm--the next round will meet our own lipsisn't that the scene from outside our own window?curious isn't it?when kicking and grimacing he sends our vessels rolling and crashingasking "by who's authority?"and like a poltergeist having shaken our worldis gone again.